TRAUMATIC APHASIA

This book is one of the basic books on neuropsychological
analysis of disturbance of speech, resulting from local injuries
of the brain by missile wounds. The book was first published
in Russian as a result of intensive work during the Second World
War by Professor A. R. Luria, who was head of a neurosurgical
rehabilitative hospital for those with brain injuries. A neuropsychological
and psychophysiological approach to the local brain injuries
was a basis for an analysis of the most important disorders of
language and a starting point to the general theory of higher
cortical functions of man which was developed by the author and
published in his other books: Higher Cortical Functions in
Man (New York, Basic Books, 1966) and Human Brain and
Psychological Processes (New York, Harper & Row, 1966).

The author's approach to Aphasia is an attempt to single out
basic neuropsychological factors underlying speech. He describes
injuries of the left temporal lobe dealing with the analysis
and synthesis of phonemes and resulting in sensory (acoustic)
Aphasia; injuries of post-central and premotor zones of the left
hemisphere, leading to disturbances of the afferent (kynesthetic)
and efferent (kinetic) organization of speech; injuries of the
left parietooccipital lobe, resulting in disturbances of the
simultaneous, spatial schemes and leading to the semantic disturbances
of logic-grammatical structures. He describes a special methodology
for studying Aphasia and basic methods of rehabilitation of speech
in patients with local brain injuries.

The book can be used as a source of information for linguists,
neurologists, psychiatrists and psychologists interested in a
scientific approach to the disturbances of language and speech
and for a better understanding of the structure of language.